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Bob was a quick wit and a lovingly supportive friend of the gallery. His love for art and painting, and his upbeat nature are missed by the gallery. A successful former illustrator and designer in the field of advertising in New York City, Trondsen started his fine art career as a still-life painter and eventually moved to painting landscapes full-time. He drews on the aesthetic of the Hudson River School and the Tonalists but his painting style is rooted in contemporary techniques. This melding of traditions produced work of ethereal mood and lovely repose that, thankfully, do not feel dated or stylistically stale.
Primarily a studio painter, he tried to idealize in his paintings his impressions of the countryside that he grew up in - to return to his past conscious and subconscious experiences of the natural world as inspiration for the new work. George Inness's paintings of spiritual and atmospheric scenes were a primary influence on Trondsen's work. So, too, the idea that a well-composed and affectively strong work of art is a more important end than painting just a "true-to-life", literal version of the landscape. Trondsen was impressed by Inness's "attention to lack of detail".
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